Doctor Who_ Last Man Running - Chris Boucher [15]
‘No, of course it isn’t,’ Pe-pertanor said, frowning at Ri-rinandor.
But the woman was not to be put off. ‘When did you make planetfall? Was it fairly recently?’
‘Rinandor, leave it, will you?’ Pe-pertanor was showing signs of annoyance.
Ri-rinandor’s smile remained. ‘Leaving aside the question of what Thedoctor and Leela are doing here on this deserted crapsoid. Which happens to be an OIG interdicted planet...’
‘Only because of the runner,’ Pe-pertanor said, ‘whose known associates do not include a toody called Thedoctor or a firster named Leela.’
‘No lift-offs or landings are allowed without prior clearance from the Out-system Investigation Group,’ Ri-rinandor went on. ‘And I expect they’ve got a ship somewhere about. Or perhaps here’s a rendezvous arranged.’
Leela watched the young man’s expression change. He looked like a starveling who had noticed someone else with food. She decided she had wasted enough time on these people. ‘Avoid the remains of the snake,’ she said. ‘It is still dangerous. The leg is not broken but you will need to walk slowly and use it as little as possible.’ She started away.
‘You’re not going to leave us like this,’ Ri-rinandor said.
It sounded like a threat to Leela. In her peripheral vision she saw the woman reaching for the weapon she carried in a holster at her waist. ‘I have to look for the Doctor,’ Leela said casually, and stepped to one side so that there was a tree between them. Keeping the tree in the line of fire, she loped away. She was fairly sure the handguns the two were carrying were short-range and ineffective. If they had had any real destructive power available to them they would have used it against the snake.
Chapter Three
It was becoming clear to the Doctor that the creature was not likely to give up and go away so he was going to need a new plan – or any plan – since all he had managed so far was run away and climb a tree, which owed a lot more to instinct than to intellect. He was also beginning to regret leaving Leela locked in the TARDIS. If anything did happen to him she could live a long time there of course, a full life span in fact, but sadly that was not the same as a full life. It was not a decision he had intended to take her on her behalf. Nor would he have done had he thought about it. Lack of thought was a regrettable feature of all his behaviour so far.
But all was not yet lost. The creature appeared to have reached the limit of its climb and was still not able to touch him. He was in no immediate danger. He had time to think.
He set himself to analysing the situation and to finding the creature’s weaknesses. The important point to remember, he reminded himself, was that any organism must be seen as part of the environment. Strength and weakness were not isolated conditions: organism and environment together created them. A fish might be huge and powerful but once out of water it was no match for the scrawniest of rats.
From what he had seen of this environment a creature the size of the one squatting below him on the tree should be constantly hungry. The fact that it had chased him with such single-minded ferocity suggested either ravenous hunger or aggressive fear. He was surely too small to be identified as a threat or a hunting rival, even by something as undiscriminating as a giant louse, so the probability was hunger. All things considered, given the amount of energy it must expend in moving as quickly as it did, there was a reasonable chance that the creature was living on the edge of starvation.
The beginnings of a plan began to take shape in the Doctor’s mind. If he could persuade it to keep moving the creature might exhaust an already very small reserve of energy, thus weakening it enough to allow him to escape.
Perhaps he could enrage it sufficiently to get it to keep climbing so that it fell off the tree and had to heave itself up all over again.
It struck the Doctor that as a plan it was not much more subtle than his first effort. This time what he had come up